An American woman who shot dead her own son and tried to kill her two daughters claimed that she did it to free them from their abusive father, according to a report published in Fox News today.

Amy Leann Hall, from Tulsa, the capital of Oklahoma state, gunned down her son Kayson Toliver, aged 18. He was hit with a bullet to the head while he was sleeping at his mother’s home early on the morning of Thursday, 1st November, according to police statements. Hall also shot at her daughters in the same fashion, but they survived their injuries, with one managing to escape. Police came to the property thirty-five miles outside Tulsa, and found Toliver deceased. The mother was arrested, and claimed she carried out the shootings to protect her children from their violent father, according to an affidavit issued by the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s Office.

One of the two daughters, aged 16, is still in hospital in a critical condition, Fox News stated. The other daughter, aged 14, managed to escape her mother and hid crying in a bathroom, she later told her mother she was ‘okay’ before somehow managing to get the murder weapon, a pistol, from Hall, the article stated. Hall fled the scene and sped down local roads at 100 mph before police pulled her over, according to FOX 23 Tulsa, a local media outlet. She was arrested on the scene, and police are currently piecing together a motive for the killings.

Police stated that they had received callouts in the past to the family home over ‘domestic incidents’. Hall and the children’s father had separated two years ago and were engaged in a fierce custody battle over the children. She had applied to obtain sole custody of her family, but the father had attempted to overturn that application, stating that Hall was ‘mentally unstable’ and was ‘psychologically abusive’ to her offspring.

The deceased son was remembered as an excellent student and top level American football player for his school team at Beggs High School in Tulsa. “He was a very likeable young man,” head football coach David Tenison told the World. “He had a good heart, good spirit. His smile was infectious. It just infected everyone around him. He made you want to smile.”

Hall is now charged with a single count of first-degree murder, and two counts of shooting with an intention to kill and is currently on bail. She told police that after killing her children, she had intended to take her own life. The case continues.

Those of you who are currently living or visiting the United States and Canada, or do not live there but have been following the news this past week, are presumably very much aware of the weird weather phenomenon that is gripping the north American continent. A body of extremely bitter cold air from the Arctic tundra has meandered its way down south and has enveloped the continent in very cold temperatures close to -40 to -50 degrees Celsius, coupled with heavy snow drifts. This phenomenon has been referred to by both meteorologists and the news media as a ‘polar vortex’. It may sound like something falling out of the pages of a sci-fi novel, but it is very real. By Wednesday, temperatures of -12 C were reported in New York and -8 in nearby Boston, Massachusetts. Ironically, a town in Michigan state called Hell, reported air temperatures of -37 degrees Celsius or so. So Hell really did freeze over….. The Niagara falls on the border of the two countries turned into ice on the spot, a spectacle last observed in the 19th century. Lake Michigan also froze over. Extremely low temps were even reported near the summit of Mauna Kea, in tropical Hawai’i state far out in the mid Pacific Ocean.

This combined Humour/Photo Moment comes from my cousin Vipul via a mobile upload on Facebook and it’s a now rather ironic cartoon of a boy having to help his dad clear the snow from their driveway. I can guess this kid is not used to hard work and likes the company of his phone but there’s no escaping some back-breaking labour with a hefty dose of elbow grease and a dash of frostbite to keep daddy dearest from spending all winter at home snowed in with his beers. Poor kid. While shovelling snow from the front yards of houses is a common sight of US and Canadian localities during the winter months, it’s much rarer in Britain especially in the South, where it’s more likely to rain rather than snow. Most snow removal our way consists of scraping ice crystals off the car windscreen. My cousin happens to be a driving instructor so this must be a pain in the snowballs for him!! Sadly some of the twenty-one fatalities reported so far from the areas hit by the vortex have been of people who perished from heart attacks as they attempted to tackle the snow flurries in these abnormal conditions.

As every man knows, it is a tough and hectic world out there. So after a long day’s work (or an even longer pub crawl), chasing after the kids and keeping on top of a thousand things DIY-related, it is just pure manly heaven to be able to retire to your own little sanctuary. An escape from the trials and travesties of life. A special private zone where you can revel in your masculinity and have some badly-needed bloke time. Want to watch the footie without the wife complaining. Go ahead. Want to finish off that last six-pack of cold lager. Knock yourself out. Need to scratch an itch in an unmentionable place. Who’s stopping you!.

Us guys have had the man-room, the man-lounge and even the ‘man-cave’. Now personalised card company Scribbler have come up with the latest reincarnation of the man-space, just in time for Father’s Day on the 16th June. Introducing the Man Chair.

(c) Scribbler Holdings

This Father’s Day, instead of buying your dad that shirt with the shocking pink stripes that he will only wear once under pain of death and then ‘forget’ at the bottom of his wardrobe….or that cologne with an aroma so powerful it could sedate anyone within a 10-mile radius, why not gift him his own chair complete with male-friendly knick-knacks. A place where he can sit all day, interruption-free, with everything he could ever desire just an arm’s stretch away. Somewhere he can escape from the real world, a homemade slice of paradise, right there in his living room, study or garden shed. He and he alone is allowed to sit in his man chair. It’s his sanctuary; a child-free, woman-free, rule-free zone, complete with everything he could ever need or want.

Like any great idea (or sportscar), the Man Chair can be as individual as the Man himself. So with Father’s Day just around the corner, Scribbler wants to know what kind of Man Chair you will be gifting Pops. Perhaps you want to throw in a mannequin hand, so Dad can keep the flies off his kebab. Or emergency snack drops by remote-controlled helicopter. Or a sofa with side pockets to stash the TV remote or phone for when the ‘old man’ needs to handle those all-important calls to his rugby mates…or get away from those annoying ad breaks at half-time.

Just send in your ideas for the perfect Man Chair to Scribbler and the funniest – or rudest – ideas will be selected for a special mention on Scribbler’s blog, Facebook and Twitter pages.

2. Tweet them using the handle @scribblercards with the hashtag #mydadsmanchair (click on the handle link in this sentence and you can tweet with the hashtag automatically – or visit the Scribbler Twitter account and tweet them from there).